A massive Antarctic glacier is in irreversible decline and will add up to a centimeter to world sea levels in the next 20 years, claim polar scientists.
A new paper in Nature Climate Change describes how the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) has been shedding ice into the ocean at a dramatically increasing rate. Using observations on …

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A choice of words

Examine the wording of the opening paragraph:

"A new paper in Nature Climate Change describes how the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) has been shedding ice into the ocean at a dramatically increasing rate. Using observations on the grounds and from satellites, the team says the rate of loss has increased from 20 gigatonnes a year between 1992 and 2011 to about 100 gigatonnes a year. The team estimates the rate of loss will continue at this rate for the foreseeable future."

"Shedding ice." "Rate of loss."

Um, the glacier is transporting fallen snow to the ocean as ice, right? The flow rate would be expected to vary with time. So why the breathless reporting on "rate of loss?" Is there an ideal mass for that glacier? Would the world be better off if it fattened up a bit? Or is all this part and parcel of "Dem seas, dey gonna rise" fear-mongering?

Witness the admission of "thickening" attributed to a mere La Niña "event," as opposed to the generally accepted slide toward global warm.. uh, climate change. Forgot for a moment.

Re: A choice of words

@ localzuk

"Take a look at this page, which highlights just how much of a consensus anthropogenic global warming has"

Of course we all know the right people are the ones with the consensus. That is why it wont be zeus destroying the earth but our end will come at the hands of the abrahamic gods although there is some confusion of who will be saved.

Is the consensus 97% or 95% and of how many scientists need excluding for giving the wrong answer? Regardless of your stance on MMCC and its variations you should surely be willing to stick to the science and not popular opinion. Unless you think the winning theory should be voted for on x factor

> transporting fallen snow to the ocean

One correction here where your model falls over. There is practically no falling snow in the antarctic (I think it's the equivalent of 5cm of rain per /year/). It's technically the biggest desert in the world! I think that would tend to imply rate of loss is not affected by fallen snow.

The problem, especially in Antarctica, is that this ice has been on ground for ... some time, and now it's not going to be. Melted or not it's going to raise the sea level.

What I do find confusing in the article though is it says both "the rate of loss will continue at this rate for the foreseeable future" and later on "increasing the speed with which it slides into the ocean". So do they mean the rate of increase of loss?

Re: A choice of words

The existence of a consensus for theory A over theory B has proven to be a weak indicator of which theory is correct. The consensus was that Newtonian laws of motion were correct, that the continents were fixed in place and that species did not change. These were all replaced by newer theories, which in time gained the consensus.

And that "follow my leader" tendency is perhaps understable. It's a big subject and few if any scientists will have the capability to look at all angles of it and come to a reasoned view. Most will have only worked on a part of it so will presumably have a limited view.

I'm unclear why it matters if any negative climate change is caused by mankind or not, which seems to be a heated part of the debate. Surely it matters more what mankind can do to correct any such changes? Granted, this might be to change our ways if those had caused the original problem, but that isn't necessarily the only solution.

Re: How commentards do science: word analysis on a writeup by El Reg

Perhaps it goes something like this:

My doctor told me to stop drinking. But as ANY schoolboy knows, we need to drink to live! If his advice fails to pass this basic high school requirement, then I don't know what Britain's coming to. I told him this, and he said it's only certain types of drink that I can't have. Talk about trying to weasel out of it. I can't believe that this generation is allowed to become doctors when they don't have a single O level, which in my opinion are the highest academic qualification in all of history.

Re: A choice of words

Re: How commentards do science: word analysis on a writeup by El Reg

The thing that I find interesting about all this is that the PIG doesn't seem to be following other climate change trends. For instance. You might think that rising world temperatures would cause the ice to melt and increase the shed rate. Fair enough. Seems logical. However, this increase has happened when even the most ardent warmist has agreed no warming has been occuring. So, what is causing it? Presumably they must know as otherwise, how do they know it will increase etc.etc. as stated in the article.

To me, this piece of information just increases my impression that scientists don't really have much of a clue what's going on and why.

Re: A choice of words

You should really really look into how the so-called 97% consensus came about. You will see it is majorly flawed. I'm not going to tell you how, because I want you to research. And I want you to research because that will make you a mortal enemy of the global warming movement. I want you to ask the dangerous questions "Is it true?" and "Where is the raw data so others can verify?" and "Why don't you live in a way you tell me I have to live?"

And petitionproject.org destroys the "97% consensus" argument immediately. Science is not be consensus! Science is by dissent!

A paper in "Nature Climate Change".

Completely disregarding the validity or lack thereof of the paper, what does one expect in a publication named "Nature Climate Change"?

If you want the other view, subscribe to "Constant Climate Quarterly".

It's like looking for a positive article about Windows 8 in "macUser", a favourable report about Ford's new Focus in "Vauxhall Astra Fan Magazine" or recipes for beef and bacon casserole in "The Vegan Weekly".

Re: A choice of words

People keep saying that science isn't about consensus, but in reality it is. The reason that you can name Galileo, Einstien, the plate tectonics guys, the stomach ulcer guy and the one or two other scientists who single handedly overturned the consensus is for just that reason, it's almost never done.

Take medical science for instance: If you get cancer, you go to an oncologist, you don't go to gaenocologist or a pathologist who suggest that gozo berry juice will fix it, because they don't know the subject. You take the treatment specificed by the specialist and that treatment will be as a direct result of consensus science. The consensus can change over time, usually slowly, but it is incredibly rare for it to be totally overturned by a vanishingly small group of non-specialists in the field.

Re: A choice of words

Re: A choice of words

"Is the consensus 97% or 95% and of how many scientists need excluding for giving the wrong answer?"

There hasn't been any reasonable doubt about global warming / climates change for well over a decade now. The only outstanding questions with any scientific doubt are how much of it is due to us (it seems highly likely we are the primary cause). and how bad will it be?

Re: A choice of words

@AC

"There hasn't been any reasonable doubt about global warming / climates change for well over a decade now. The only outstanding questions with any scientific doubt are how much of it is due to us (it seems highly likely we are the primary cause). and how bad will it be?"

Re: A choice of words

AGW? No. Again, look at the links provided. 1 out of 9000+ people publishing papers in 13 months disagree with AGW. MMCC is effectively the same thing as AGW in reality, and again there's very little 'dissent' and each time there is it gets torn apart when published.

The effects I agree, we really can't assign specific changes to AGW, and this was explained clearly by the Met Office recently - they simply don't have the computing resources to model each event properly. Which is why Cameron was slammed for blaming the recent bad storms on global warming, as the Met Office couldn't confirm or deny it as they hadn't the resources to find out.

Re: A choice of words

You might want to brush up on a dictionary before you start bashing people about choice of words.

'Rate' is the speed of change, not the change itself. If you plot ice thickness over time, the rate is the slope or trend of the line, not any absolute measure on it, which of course change all the time. For the rate itself to be changing indicates a significant occurance.

In this case it means that not only is the ice thinning as was known but crucially the speed of thinning is getting faster. This IS reportworthy and of scientific interest no matter what you believe about the cause.

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

It's totally fair to point out that that consensus changes quite a lot. This is just the kind of smokescreen deniers rely on.

Science never says 'this is the way it is', it says 'this is the way the observable facts and current knowledge suggests it is' And there will be occasional dissent, and if the dissenters are able to present a reasonable case to change the status quo, then the scientific community will change their point of view on a dime - that's why science fails as a religion - show me one of them fuckers that ever changed their mind about anything.

Let just one denier actually DO this, make a valid contribution to the science that flies in the face of current thinking and opinions will change. Seems to me all they do is stand on the sidelines bitching about points of order and outliers in the data. Looking just marginally less fuckwitted than the fox talking heads going on about how there cant be global warming cos 3/4 of the us is under 4 feet of snow this week.

If deniers did science instead of politics they would have a leg to stand on, they either wont or cant.

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

"Science never says 'this is the way it is', it says 'this is the way the observable facts and current knowledge suggests it is' And there will be occasional dissent, and if the dissenters are able to present a reasonable case to change the status quo, then the scientific community will change their point of view on a dime - that's why science fails as a religion - show me one of them fuckers that ever changed their mind about anything."

Not true with AGW. If a dissenter presents a reasonable case to even take a LOOK at the status quo, they are publicly ridiculed and ostracized. Sounds a lot like organized religion to me.

Re: A choice of words

>> You may wish to stop reading right wing media about global warming...

You may wish to stop portraying anyone who doesn't agree with AGW as right wingers. I don't agree with AGW and I'm not right wing, nor do I read right wing media. But as is typical of AGW, it's all about politics. It has nothing to do with real science.

>> Take a look at this page, which highlights just how much of a consensus anthropogenic global warming has..

The way you AGW proselytising zealots bang on about the consensus, one would almost think that you're unsure of yourselves and your ideas. Why does all this somehow remind me of religion? Denouncing non-believers who don't follow the so called consensus, of which there is none, as heretics (right wing?).

>> The idea of a sea level rise isn't "fear-mongering". It has happened already, and is >>continuing to do so. It has a direct effect on low lying countries (such as Tuvalu).

I'm going to break with tradition here and not write a rebuttal of that, but instead pose a question: So what do we do about it? Is it possible in real terms to reverse it? If not, what the hell point is there in worrying about it. Are you willing to give up your modern life and revert back to caveman status in order to stop it? Or are you just going to spout premonitions of apocalypse. I'd really like to know.

>> Loss of glacier ice is worrying, as it takes a *long* time for it to form in the first place.

I'm not worried. We'll all be dead long before it'll be a problem anyway. I'm more worried about job security and how I'm going to pay my mortgage than whether ice is melting or forming at the poles in all honesty. That might be selfish of me, but f**k it. I like to focus on the here and now, not a hundred years in the future.

Re: A choice of words

Re: A choice of words

I am a professional statistician, and one glance at the link you gave: "http://climatecrocks.com/2014/01/14/about-that-global-warming-consensus/" highlights it as being biased. It searches through a set of academic articles looking for ones that explicitly state a very strong negative conjecture (that anthropogenic CO2 is not the fundamental reason for observed climate change). It does not however provide a summary of which of those article explicitly state the opposite, that anthropogenic CO2 IS the fundamental reason for observed climate change. The vast majority of papers are actually highly ambiguous on what they believe are fundamental reasons for climate change. Many are looking at specific observed trends (for example: the receding or advancing of individual glaciers; or global temperatures measured by a particular satellite), the small percentage that try to attribute blame usually do so through models, and even then often have a variety of standards of statistical backing. It is interesting reading pro-climate change news organisations (like the BBC) who have, every few years, published an article that essentially says, "Climate change proven to be caused by anthropogenic CO2". The reason that those articles still appear is precisely because very few papers actually make that claim. It is probably not as low as 1, but I sincerely doubt that more than 1% of the 2259 papers mentioned actually make the exact opposing claim; although I am confident that you will find more papers stating the strong conjecture that Anthropogenic CO2 is to blame rather than the strong conjecture that it is not to blame.

Re: A choice of words

Re: A choice of words

No. You remember the named scientists because they were particularly noteworthy or celebrated. The majority of scientific advance is in smaller steps but nevertheless these are steps away from the consensus view. Even Newton thought he was a gradualist: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".

Oncology is not relevant to this discussion. Yes if you have 1,000 cancer patients you need a lot of oncologists to deal with that. And the consensus approach will be the best available. But you still need science to improve on the consensus. The analogy here is if you had a single patient who lives a long time and thinks they have a temperature. Unfortunately, you have little knowledge of how his biology works so opinions differ as to whether he's well or not, if he's unwell what's causing it and how to make him well again.

Re: A choice of words

I haven't seen much evidence of warming, so I have some doubts. All the experts say there is warming, and who am I to argue?

What I do know is, a lot of bureaucrats and politicians want to blame me (and others) for this global warming and then tax us into submission for doing it.

I'm not sure how taxes can possibly help global warming, but I am sure that too many climate scientists are politicians and bureaucrats who depend on the tax-trough for their pensions. I'm quite sure that the consensus is clear on that one: such people ought not to be trusted.

Re: A choice of words

A "consensus of scientists" is worthless if that "consensus" is self-serving BS. Some might think this is hyperbole, but I know from personal experience that "government scientists" will lie, libel, and generally behave in a very bad manner in the pursuit of their ideological convictions. I have a Supreme Court judgment to prove that.

And this whole AGW thing is self-serving BS, intended to increase and divert ever more tax dollars to "climate research", and benefit the scientists and their various investment schemes.

What's consensus?

In this case, I believe the consensus amongst scientists in on the order of 99.99% (seriously: 9136 to 1 in a recent survey) for GW and ~95% for AGW (note that the most of the other 5% aren't saying that it isn't anthropogenic, just that they're not convinced). Fortunately for flat earthers, US congress takes a less "alarmist" view where 58% are convinced that global warming (not just AGW) is fiction.

Re: How commentards do science: word analysis on a writeup by El Reg

@Mad Mike

Oh dear. When was this mythological time when "even the most ardent warmist has agreed no warming has been occurring"? [spelling corrected]

Maybe you need to do a little reading of alternate views to what's bouncing around in your echo chamber. If you are referring to the cherry picked period that mysteriously happened to align with some El El Niño extremes, then (1) you FAILED basic statistics and (2) you FAILED science. It was known at the time that if you removed El Niño and volcanic aerosol effects the supposed flat period was significantly reduced. Subsequent research also indicates that if poor estimates of Arctic warming are improved the effect basically gone. In science, you incorporate all data, add new and improved information, correct your ideas and move on. In ideology, you find an emotionally resonant story and stick with it come Hell or highwater by playing with words and repeating discredited factoids. Take your pick.

In any case there's an even more basic logical error here. Even if the global averaged surface temperature had actually stopped rising, this says little about the temperature of the water arriving at the base of that particular ice shelf that is causing the melt. Which has, over a limed period of measurement, risen. Which is consistent with the shelf ice loss.

Re: A choice of words

"A consensus of scientists is worth more than a consensus of popular opinion, politicians, religion, commentards or economists"

Actually, a consensus of scientists is worth nothing. It is the science that has worth. And when there is so much out and out fraud in a field, like there is in "climate science", it is impossible to trust. One example is the constant misrepresentation of computer models as if they were evidence. Wait a few hundred years and check the actual measurements.

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

"Science never says 'this is the way it is', it says 'this is the way the observable facts and current knowledge suggests it is' "

And that's the nub of the issue. Scientists put forward theories based on observations. Politicians, Greens, Hippies, Corporates, Oil Executives et al take the theories that suit their particular belief/prejudice/money making scheme and pronounce them to be incontrovertible fact.

While 'Unexpected (and as yet unexplained) thickening of the ice coverage was observed over a study period of two years' becomes 'Scientists have proved the planet is getting colder. The ice is thickening'

Even more apposite at the moment is how 'CO2 is a well known greenhouse gas, and there is little doubt that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution, therefore it is a valid area of research to examine the possibility of an anthropogenic influence on climate change' becomes 'I have a method for burying globally irrelevant quantities of CO2 underground, and now the government will give me millions in taxpayer money under the impression that I am saving the planet. Hoorah!'

The message from science is that we don't really know the extent of AGW/MMCC, we don't really know if it exists, we don't have a sufficient history of observation to make black & white pronouncements on the subject, but our observations have led us to construct mechanisms A, B & C which fit the current observational data. Maybe one of them is the correct mechanism, maybe more than one, maybe none. After another 10/20/100 years of data we may need to overturn our mechanisms, or we may not, but for now, we have a small number of working hypotheses.

Unfortunately, people want simple, black/white, easy to implement ideas. And politicians are people who also want 'something that will get us reelected'

For everything, we seem to need two things: A validation of our own beliefs, plus a simple solution to an increasingly complex situation.

So as the world goes down the crapper (or possibly not), our preferred solution is to line up on opposite sides of the room and call each other names.

Re: What's consensus?

My son is a scientist. He's a microbiologist, doing original research into the genetic roots of progressive blindness (or something)

I wouldn't expect him to know shit about Global Warming.

99.9% of scientists don't do climate research, so either your consensus figures are wrong or there's a metric fuckton of scientists out there voicing an opinion on something they know bugger all about.

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

Re: A choice of words

If you have cancer you go to an oncologist. If you want someone who discovers new things about disease, you go to a medical researcher. This is a brilliant example of the fact that someone whose research is based on climate change being true (ie they are downstream of the idea) is probably not doing research that could ever disprove that. They just aren't asking that question, just as an oncologist probably isn't going to see anything outside his/her training in cancer, or (for the IT angle) a system user is going see the complexity of the software he/she has been trained to use.

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

Re: A choice of words

@The Dude - the idea of increased taxes is that they are used to subsidise 'green' technologies, and to modify behaviour (eg. VED being used to get people to use less polluting cars in the UK). Both are a great idea, in principle, but like any idea implemented by politicians they are nearly always badly done. Vested interests and lobbying comes in and starts changing definitions and boundaries, and suddenly your V8 with a 9V battery is classed as a fuel efficient car, and the guy who wants to turn 1000 acres of prime farm land into a solar farm gets the go-ahead. Neither of these are the fault of the scientists who have pointed out that AGW exists.

@DiViDeD - Context is key. The consensus isn't 99.99% of *all* scientists when people say 'scientists' they are referring to 'scientists who have engaged in research on the relevant subject'. Its implied through context.

@Jtom - Can you provide peer reviewed evidence that CO2 isn't the cause? I really am interested to read this if you can. I've seen some typical print media responses but no links back to actual papers.

Re: How commentards do science: word analysis on a writeup by El Reg

@ Wzrd1

"I love how El Reg switches state like a nice flip flop. One story about how climate change isn't happening, another how it is."

You do know there are different writers. And unlike the BBC where they must toe the party line no matter how much bull they are shovelling, the writers of the reg are just reporting what is available instead of cherry picking.

Surely this would be called balanced reporting. Definitely different to what normally passes as news media but certainly more informative.

Re: A choice of words

@ localzuk

"@kiwimuso - but that's the point isn't it? There isn't any evidence being presented by the scientific community to show that the consensus is wrong. Hence there being a consensus still!"

There is a lack of evidence presented by the scientific community to claim to be right. Their successful tests have been minimal and their predictions far from accurate. The consensus is acceptable in those terms. Kinda like string theory or dark matter, they might be right but until they can prove actual benchmarks then we shouldnt be shafting the economies assuming they are correct.

The science is worth doing but the consensus is nothing more than one side assumes the higgs exists and the other doesnt. And either side could have been proven wrong but it was the science that set the standard not the politics.

If MMCC co2 theory is proven correct we have no idea what the damage could be. It could be nothing or everything. But irreversible damage to economies is a certainty if we continue to throw money into failed technologies and bad policies. If it is as dangerous as claimed then it is measurable, but we cant get accurate predictions because we dont know enough of the science to have the answers.

So a scientific consensus is fine but we should be living on facts. The fact is the consensus doesnt have the facts yet. Religions know they are right absolutely no matter how many times they are proven absolutely wrong. That is not how real science should work.

Re: A choice of words

There is no such thing as irreversible damage to an economy. There is such a thing as permanent damage to our planet (or at least permanent enough to damage the lives of the living things on the planet).

Re: A choice of words

"@Jtom - Can you provide peer reviewed evidence that CO2 isn't the cause? I really am interested to read this if you can. I've seen some typical print media responses but no links back to actual papers."

Re: Best. Comment. Ever

Re: A choice of words

@Philip Lewis - I don't want proof of a negative proposition. As it stands, there are a great many papers, peer reviewed and published, which state that CO2 is the cause of GW. I'm asking for the proof to show that these are wrong, as that's how Science works - something is accepted and agreed as true until someone comes up with a better theory.